The Ultimate Link Building Secret

If you have been involved in the internet marketing industry, then you will probably know that link building is one of the most important and toughest aspects of SEO, and how to get ahead eludes a lot of new and advanced SEOs.

However, there is a secret many of the world’s top SEOs and digital marketers keep to themselves. This secret is the ultimate weapon for link building. You will hear SEO experts talk about a lot of stuff on how to rank high in the search results, and what they say is true by the way. But they won't easily tell you that authority is what drives links.

There's a lot of great advice out there to guide you through link building, with detailed information on finding relevant targets, creating the right type of content that attracts links, and reaching out to editors and publishers.

The one big thing no one seems to come out and say is that authority is the ultimate link building tool. In the field of SEO; when we're talking about authority, we're referring to credibility. For instance, would you link to soccer tips from Lionel Messi's official site or an unknown blogger? For me, I know I'd much rather send my site's visitors to Lionel Messi's site.

The problem is we're not all the Lionel Messi of our industry, so building and retaining that level of credibility is tough. This is especially true online, where competition is intense and standing out means working harder than everyone else.

In this article our mission is to create a plan for building authority that will aid in your link building efforts more and more as time goes on. Here are a few ways to get started:

1) Network with the big dogs.

The company you keep reflects greatly on other people's perception of who you are. This means that networking with authorities in your industry publicly, whether in real life or online, will give a great boost to your own authority.

And thanks to the increasing number of social media platforms, it's easier than ever before to network with big personalities in your industry. They might not always respond, and you won't win over everyone, but just simple interactions and enthusiasms toward people in your industry will get you noticed.

Any of the so many social sites will do the trick. I prefer to go for Twitter. My advice to you goes as follows; follow top experts in your industry, reply to their tweets, re-tweet back, favorite your followers tweets, create lists and add them to it.

Take time to follow anyone and everyone relevant to your industry, work on crafting original thoughts and content. This simple act can get you noticed. It may not be quick to happen, and it may not work out in the long run, but the payoff for becoming known as a high-quality industry contributor and personality is more than worth the hard work and dedication.

2) Fake it.

If you're looking to achieve something, you're not going to win by acting like you have no knowledge or credibility. You become something by showing the world that you're confident in your abilities. Now before I start getting off on a motivational rant, I'll give you a few pieces of advice that you can take action on immediately:

• Present a professional image: If you want to be taken seriously online, the first thing you need to do is present a professional image. This means using high quality images for your profile/cover photos, optimizing your profile descriptions, and ensuring your content is genuine, unique and relevant.

• Have a personal website/blog: A personal website is a great place to send people to not only get to know more about you and your career, but a place for you to write original content to share with your industry.

• Start guest posting: As a digital marketer, when I think of a top industry personality, I'm thinking of the people who show up on site after site with incredible content. And they probably didn't start out as superstars; they worked their way up over time. So start building a portfolio of content and consistently find new sites to target and topics to tackle.

• Be active on social media: In my expertise, the most successful and influential people in any given industry tend to be extremely active on social media. This doesn't mean it's required, or will guarantee success, but getting out there and communicating with other professionals will help you gain valuable connections that could help propel your career in the near future.

3) Don't be afraid to ask for help.

By nature the world's most driven people love learning and doing things on their own. No one can deny that there's a sense of pride that comes with achieving something with little to no assistance from others, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with asking for help. It doesn't make you less intelligent or capable, and definitely won't impact your success.

So if you find yourself lost trying to solve a problem, or you're simply experiencing a decline in motivation, reach out to someone you look up to within your industry. I can't tell you that they'll be grateful to help or just ignore you, but you won't know until you ask.

4) Authority flows from users to search engines.

The end result of link building is to build more authority with search engines. If you instead worked on building authority within your industry, that authority will get passed on to Google. There will be more links to your site/sites and more mentions of you/your business, which Google and other search engines will find and take into account.

So start faking it, making it, and becoming an authority within your industry to see extra success with link building.